The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, and particularly to an image processing apparatus for converting input binary pixel data into multi-level pixel data.
A multi-color printing apparatus which expands character information including color codes sent from a host computer or the like to an image in internal memory, and which then reads and outputs the image by printing is provided with separate memory units respectively corresponding to the three color components of Y (yellow), M (magenta) and C (cyan). Combination of the three color components enable multi-color display.
However, when a color image with gradation is printed on the basis of the multi-level data obtained by showing each of the color components by multi-level data, i.e., by multi-levelizing each color component, not a binary image such as a character or the like is recorded by a limited small number of colors, there is the need for processing of assigning the data about each of the color components which indicates the specified color to the dots of the binary image and storing the data in memory. The processing thus requires much labor, and the total printing speed is decreased.